Chapter 59: Shadow Devil Demon Spirit
However, Nie Li had another thing to take care of before that. He activated his phone and connected to the Memory Crystal where information from all of his spying devices flowed into. And quickly found the correct data and started it. His phone's illusion augmented reality capabilities allowed him to watch everything like he was there himself. It reminded him of a magical device called Pensive from a fantasy book series from Robert's world. Robert's memories were a treasure trove of ideas.
Nie Li returned to watching the recording. Ming Yahui, Nie Ruogang, and Nie Mu left the restaurant all of their faces gloomy. After getting some distance from the restaurant they started arguing. Ming Yahui blamed them for lying to him about Nie Li and Nie Wen's cultivation. Nie Ruogang on the other hand called him a coward and bragged that his grandfather will put Nie Li in his place. Ming Yahui called him an idiot for thinking that Nie Li didn't have a backing. In the end, both sides quarreled seriously saying things to each other that they are going to regret in the future.
But their quarreling gave Nie Li some useful information. Nie Ruogang only informed Ming Yahui today about the matter and asked for his help. So he wasn't able to investigate the matter personally. Thus greatly underestimating Nie Li.
Also, Nie Ruogang is going to involve the grand Elder in the matter. But Nie Li wasn't worried about that. The old man, while ambitious, was very loyal to the clan. So he would never do something that may hurt the clan.
Ming Yahui however was completely another matter. He had no loyalty to the clan so it would not be a problem for him to sell the interests of the clan. But Nie Li wouldn't make a hasty decision. He may be useful in other ways.
Nie Li sped up the video watching as Ming Yahui directly returned to his dorm. After reaching his room he paced angrily from one corner to another for some time. Unfortunately, he wasn't a monologuing type and Nie Li couldn't read what was in his mind. It would have made things easier.
Nie Li fast forwarded the video to the current moment where Ming Yahui was simply sitting deep in thought. So Nie Li put his phone into autoplay mode and alert him if something happened like 'the client' leaving the room. He did not have time to watch the kid full day. And his other spy devices were also sending information. He really must hire some operators to watch all of these. But finding trustworthy people was a real problem. He hoped to solve it with the help of elder Nie En.
After finishing his current tasks Nie Li sat down to cultivate. He doesn't need to use his Cultivating Tent for this. His soul force was already pressuring the barrier to the Silver rank. Nie Li began absorbing the soul force from the surrounding world and concentrating it in his soul realm. The density of the energy in his soul realm rose increasing the pressure on the barriers.
Nie Li could have accelerated it with the help of elixirs but there was no reason for that. Let it be as natural as possible. After ten minutes of absorption enhanced by abstruse gemstone his soul force naturally surged and easily broke the barrier separating it from the Silver Rank. It was the smoothest breakthrough Nie Li faced in his both lives.
His soul realm passed through qualitative changes, it was bigger, and its energy density was noticeably higher as well. Now it was the turn of Shadow Devil Demon Spirit. If he had Nightmare Demon Pot he may have used it to try to evolve the demon spirit. Or maybe not, considering the possibility of losing it permanently. Whatever the case he is going to integrate with it now. If he changes his mind in the future he can take it out of his soul realm.
He retrieved the Shadow Devil Spirit Lamp. His right hand slowly stroked the lamp and inserted his soul force into it. A clinking sound was heard and the lamp's light started flickering.
Wailing cries began issuing from the Lamp. And Nie Li spread his soul force into it and quickly found the black shadow. It was the Shadow Devil Demon Spirit. It was shrieking miserably trying to resist Nie Li's soul force, which was pulling it towards his soul realm.
The resistance lasted only a couple of seconds before the Shadow Devil Demon Spirit turned into a black shadow and with a whooshing sound was sucked into Nie Li's soul realm.
After that, there was no point in resistance anymore. Once a demon spirit enters a Demon Spiritualist's soul realm, they will be controlled by the Demon Spiritualist, with the support of the Demon Spiritualist's soul force. Unless the Demon Spiritualist releases the demon spirit on his own, the demon spirit will not be able to obtain freedom.
After integration, Nie Li's soul realm expanded again. His and demon spirit's soul forces began mixing. From now on Shadow Devil Spirit is part of Nie Li. He tested its abilities, the Void form, and Bone sickles. They were the same as in the novel. His void form reminded him of Mo Kuang's ghost form. But there were some differences. Even though his senses weren't as warped as those of ghosts, he could feel that there was some kind of barrier between his new form and world. As if he was in another dimension. In this form, he would not be affected by anything that happened around him. He could walk through the walls and even through spirit force attacks.
It was great stealth and assassination ability. Speaking about assassination abilities, Nie Li checked his bone sickles. They were extremely sharp. Maybe even sharper than his sword. Of course, his sword's main power came from its different energy attack modes, not from its sharpness, but still, having another potent weapon in his hands was a good thing.
Nie Li looked through his surveillance system recordings, as he did every day in the evening. And took a record of anything interesting that happened around Star Restaurant and Dark Guild. Looked through the reports from Kaize's gang about the situation in the underworld and the actions of the Dark Guild. There wasn't much, but every small thing mattered.
After finishing his daily tasks, he returned to watch what Ming Yahui was doing. There weren't any drastic changes or his phone would have alerted him. The kid wasn't doing much. He was cultivating at the moment.
Nie Li decided to go out to train the new abilities he gained through the demon spirit. He can keep an eye on Ming Yahui from anywhere.
He headed towards the Hunting Grounds. Actually, the Silver rank demon spiritualists weren't allowed to hunt there. It was here a month ago, he and his friends hunted Demon Horned Sheep.
He wasn't even bronze rank then. Now only after a month, he had already overgrown these grounds. But no one knew that he became Silver rank already, so the guards allowed him inside. And Nie Li wasn't here to exterminate the Demon Horned Sheep either. He was here to train away from prying eyes.
Nie Li walked through the forest until he found a large enough clearing.
There Nie Li trained his abilities. Integration with a demon spirit gave an instinctual understanding of the new techniques. But understanding the techniques and being proficient in them were different things.
He trained his speed of merging with his demon spirit. After getting it to the point where he could do it in a blink of an eye, he started on his void form.
To partially turn invisible, or turn only part of the body corporeal. Training those had taken some time. But the benefits were great. He could attack someone while himself staying invulnerable to enemy attacks. Another bonus was he could take anything with him into his void form. Of course, there were limits. He couldn't turn anything too heavy or too big incorporeal. Anything heavier or bigger than him was off limits. Still, it allowed him to take his weapons into his incorporeal form.
Next, he tried to test if he can materialize anything inside another. It didn't work. If any part of him or anything he carried in his void form was occupying the same space as another object that part couldn't turn material. It was good news, he didn't want to be accidentally fused to a wall when he tried to pass through a wall.
Also, that meant he couldn't just stick his sword into his enemy in void form and then materialize it. Then he had another idea. What if he lets go of the object when it was inside another. He noticed earlier that anything he let go turned material immediately. He didn't want to risk his sword so he took a small stone and taking a void form stuck it into one of the trees. Then let go of it.
He was glad that he was in void form because the tree trunk's side blew up sending splinters everywhere. It looks like when the pebble appeared at the same place as the tree's body its internal pressure caused it to explode. Well if he wanted to kill someone gruesomely without them even noticing he was there, he now had a method for it.
Then he tested the sharpness of his bone sickles. They cut through the stone and steel without much difficulty. Only special hard metal alloys and materials that were enchanted for hardness could somewhat withhold it.
Nie Li also tried to change their form. His attempts to turn them into a rapier form and even into 'Wolverine claws' ended in failure. Well, that was expected. They were his bones after all. Nie Li trained a bit more until he was sure he was familiar with his new abilities completely and returned to his room.
Ming Yahui, whom he was keeping an eye on, went to sleep some time ago. He will watch the guy tomorrow too. If the guy doesn't do anything suspicious, he will approach him. He could be useful for some of Nie Li's plans.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone